Broken exorcist artillery Thread - Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) for Dawn of War

Sisters imbalanced artillery

Now SoB have incredibly far range on their exorcists. They ruin any forces from other side of most big map! They 're also very armoured for an artillery vehicle. Inquisition simply can't build anything while exorcists active - their missile ability kills all archivists and people have to use servitors.

I believe that exorcist range should be reduced (2 or even 3 parts of now value) to medium distance due to its MLRS nature! They simply can't lay all launched missiles onto small area. Their ability range also should be greatly reduced.

5 exorcits breaks all game with ease, but IRL they simply can't act like that - princips of such artillery simply don't alow such distances and accuracy for their main and abilit attack.

I agree with the fact that as Inquisition you cannot use archivist anymore once Exorcist are out (and controlled by IA), but I think Exorcist are good only against infantry moral (do they damage other vehicles besides archivist?). For counter that playing as Inquisition, you can use Whirlwinds. I dont know if Exorcists have bigger range than Whirlwinds but using the bombing-area button with them, you can reach almost half the map in big maps and almost all the map in small ones, and this does a lot of damage to everything due Whirlwinds shoot two kind of projectiles (the standard flaming one anti-moral and the bombing-area one which does great damage).

So I'm not sure Exorcists range should be nerfed because besides bugging some infantry, they are inutile.

Yes, they do (and do it much better than most of other artillery vehicles). In case of Inquisition, you can not use whirlwinds because you're dead. You see unfinished buildings and ruined base with corpses of your soldiers and destroyed vehicles.

And about what kind of f**king whirlwinds you're talking after that? Don't forget, that you also have to hold the line (about attacking actions without super-heavies I won't even write). So, how will you hold the line without main builders, sophiscated defences and normal units?

You can not use Basilisks (as my friend said, and as I saw) because they're dead.

You can not load chimeras with infantry because somewhat broken and someone dead.

You can not hold the line without IG bunkers, because anything you've got will die almost instantly under heavy fire from crazy distance (I mean both their ability and normal fire mode). And their ifantry won't allow you to do something with this.

Your aerial units will be destroyed.

Your tanks won't go further than frontline.

Your infantry... as I said, they're already dead when not in buildings. And tax much money to deepstrike somebody when you see 1 frickin' enemy artillery launcher only to kill it and have they're all dead - it's a bad decision.

Also, don't forget about your builders. Especially when you play as Inquisition.

Exorcists should be a good choice against anything from infantry to light/medium vehicles arsenal (as they do now), but with such range make it somekind of an absolute weapon.

It's a fact that they're broken. I can understand such power only in cost of its range (or/and health), because they don't have guided or directed rockets (I say rockets, ot missiles) as whirlwinds. Even Soviet BM-13 had better chances to lay their shells on target, because they had direct-mounted launcher. Exorcists obvioulsy should have shortest range of all artillery units in-game. For long-range strikes they have another version of exorcist, much similar to whirldwind mk.1.

caribpa wrote:

So I'm not sure Exorcists range should be nerfed because besides bugging some infantry, they are inutile.

Here you are. GW description

The Exorcist is a unique weapon of war to the Adeptus Sororitas - a vehicle that unleashes volleys of explosive, armour-piercing judgement upon the foes of the Imperium. Many of these tanks have been in service for several thousand years, and over time their Machine Spirits have become erratic and irascible. So much so that sometimes their attend Tech Priests barely understand them. However, while the Exorcist may be quite petulant at times, the missiles fired by these revered vehicles are capable of splitting open enemy battle tanks or destroying entire squads of enemy infantry in a single salvo. Those who fight the Sisters of Battle quickly learn to fear the Exorcist as a devastating weapon of war that can crush anything it sees with a barrage of high-explosive rockets.

Games-workshop.com

But they have such power in cost of their range. Relatively short range.

For you... to be sure... Go there and play against 3 insane sisters. You may try IG or Inquisition (Better to understand my concern). And don't forget about your 'counter-artillery' idea. Test your theory on your own. After you succeed... Go back and repeat that you're sure that everything is OK.

Edited by: Battlemage1

At the beginning I wasnt absolutely sure about your claims because most of the time I play only with Inquisition as they are my main faction and also Chaos SM as second faction and never had a problem when playing against Sisters of Battle. Note I only play free 4 all with standard/standard resources.

After your insistence, I thought I could be absolutely wrong so I made controlled tests in Sandbox mode to see the power of Exorcists, so, here are my conclusions:

- Both Inquisitorial Whirlwind and Exorcist are a tier 2 vehicle but Whirlwinds need to be researched first and they are produced slower.

- Inquisitorial Whirlwind have the double of range than Exorcist.

- Inquisitorial Whirlwind can destroy an Exorcist in 8-10 hits (depends of the armor upgrades), this is in 5-7 seconds if the Exorcist is not moving, using the bomb-into-area button.

- Exorcists slightly damage all Inquisitorial vehicles if hit ( 6-10 hp ) but insta-destroy Archivist.

- To make great damage to vehicles, Exorcists can use the "guided missile" ability at resource cost (150req and pow).

- They have almost no effect damaging infantry but they mine moral instantly and if the units can fall on the floor, they will receive damage.

- For total effectiveness against infantry, at least 4 Exorcists are required.

My conclusion and opinion is that they are a bugging unit, far from be the absolute weapon, so I think they are ok as they are right now. Playing as Inquisition, Exorcists may suprise you once destroying all your archivist but by that time you should have at least one Whirlwind ready to destroy all those bugging units from twice the distance. Inquisition are one of the races with a huge resource rate if you manage well when to build the urban buildings, far beyond Sisters of Battle, they can have vehicles in 5-8 minutes and in 10-15 min can have the Grey Knight teleporter, thus Whirlwinds, so Sisters of Battle by that time have no chance to do anything, and almost impossible without skipping tiers for having Exorcists by then.

Exorcists in short term they can't do anything by their own appart from destroying archivist. In-game almost nobody (exept AI) I think will spam Exorcists but maybe a restriction of 3-4 may be ok. I must admit they, as every artillery unit, have advantages in small maps because they can destroy enemy bases from theirs, but in big maps I dont see a big deal.

About other factions, I agree that the game in general, is not well balanced because not every race can counter artillery, so I don't know if this is the case of IG and their Basilisk, but both Eldars and Orks have almost nothing to do against races with artillery in a long game.

Playing against 3 Sisters of Battle in insane is that, insane, but not because they are overpowered, the main reason is because the player will be always the first in being attacked by AI, in my experience the AI even partially team-up to destroy the player and not to mention they use all their global abilities in you plus they get additional resources from nowhere. This is what it's unfair so probably I will agree with all your complaints about the AI. For me the closest human-like AI is harder but I understand we all like challenges.

I must admit I'm surprised to read complaints about Sisters of Battle when there are really overpowered factions out there like Tyranids and Necrons. I'm curious, can you deal without problems against these two races?

caribpa wrote:

- Both Inquisitorial Whirlwind and Exorcist are a tier 2 vehicle but Whirlwinds need to be researched first and they are produced slower.

Yes, but Inquisition need to build Urban territories to produce whirwinds, build and repair frontline defences and perform other ing.ops. With 2 maintainance (I don't want and I won't eat my infantry cap for them) servitors I can't do it as I want.

I still bleive that their ability to destroy archivists is a cheat, and their range (For non-directional MLRS) is too great.

caribpa wrote:

- Inquisitorial Whirlwind have the double of range than Exorcist.

First of all, build it and secure fire position under heavy fire. Also, you will have to build a lot of defences, units and urban territories. And protect all of it. Good luck.

caribpa wrote:

- Inquisitorial Whirlwind can destroy an Exorcist in 8-10 hits (depends of the armor upgrades), this is in 5-7 seconds if the Exorcist is not moving, using the bomb-into-area button.

It must be good, to perfrom tests on testing grounds. What's about battle conditions?

caribpa wrote:

- Exorcists slightly damage all Inquisitorial vehicles if hit ( 6-10 hp ) but insta-destroy Archivist.

My Chimeras didn't think so yesterday. IG Basilisks show unworthy contring Exorcists. Only Demolishers proven to be real effective.

But... perhaps it was combination of Exorcists and Exorcists mk.II in case of vehicles, I'm not sure.

caribpa wrote:

- To make great damage to vehicles, Exorcists can use the "guided missile" ability at resource cost (150req and pow).

And they do, from great distance I say.

caribpa wrote:

- They have almost no effect damaging infantry but they mine moral instantly and if the units can fall on the floor, they will receive damage.

I've lost 2 squads of stormtroopers per 2 volleys. Chimeras were next. I do not know where you took so low damage results.

caribpa wrote:

- For total effectiveness against infantry, at least 4 Exorcists are required.

Can't say nothing. I was too busy.

Tyranids and Necrons are not overpowered. I have no problems with them, especially when I play as IG.

You may ask how? It's hard to go forward, when you under heavy fire of 10-20 turrets behind most though Inquisitorial/Guardian buildings. Both factions ask for nukes and many lasers.

If those are just hardest factions in the game (canon), so sisters are just broken. They never were true power, but they can be deadly in some situations. Here... sisters are something badly amazing, something so acid, so you don't want to see it another time because it's disgusting.

Unfinished faction.

Edited by: Battlemage1

Come on, caribpa. Are you blinded? =) SoB is not completed faction. So someSoB units are overpowered in course to trying to keep balance.

I have no any problems when play against Sob, but I say too: THEY BUGED, especialy exorcists.

Inquisition need to build Urban territories to produce whirwinds

Inquisition needs Urban territories to be at their full potential. I agree it's an additional responsibility, that's why it's not an easy faction.

I still bleive that their ability to destroy archivists is a cheat

With this I agree 100% and I also agree that exchanging Archivists for Servitors its not an option considering Servitors eat 1 cap but I think it should be more or less this way because Servitors build extremely fast, attack (why?), and have no movement issues, plus you can attach them a servo-skull to made them invisible.

My Chimeras didn't think so yesterday.

You are comparing tier I vs tier II vehicles but anyways we both know Chimeras are almost made of paper, even with armor upgrades.

I've lost 2 squads of stormtroopers per 2 volleys. Chimeras were next. I do not know where you took so low damage results.

Stormtroopers have also paper-armor, effective but they are fragile even with upgrades, and again, Tier I units against Tier II.

IG Basilisks show unworthy contring Exorcists. Only Demolishers proven to be real effective.

I told you I have no clue how effective are Basilisks in general, but I remember they have some kind of "guided missile"-like ability as well as Exorcists, so in special abilities I think they are tied.

In any case, I see you are comparing Basilisks with Exorcist, so I guess you are right about that the general effectiveness of Basilisks is not as good as Exorcists, but Sisters of Battle is not as good as IG. It's just the beggining of the game: they start almost the weakest because they cannot conquer almost any non-nearby SP because their missionary has nothing to do against any other tier 0 squad ( except Necron's scarab ), a SoB squad? buy armor upgrades if you want to survive near an enemy SP, Serafins, what? Canoness? level her up till 5-6 or useless. Tier I only Immolator and upgrades, and in Tier II it's when you can start playing because you have Exorcists.

Col.Woods wrote:

Come on, caribpa. Are you blinded? =) SoB is not completed faction. So someSoB units are overpowered in course to trying to keep balance.

Again I point they start very weak because they cannot capture SP till they have vehicles or upgraded SoB squad, this means they should play a very resource-wise game at the beginning and in-game in small maps they get rushed early. So what I feel about them is they are weak in early game but this is a counter because their mid-endgame is very good considering the two shrines to the Emperor and the Aura of Invincibility + the Saints.

I have no any problems when play against Sob, but I say too: THEY BUGED, especialy exorcists.

It's weird you say you have no problems and then point something alike a problem.

I never had a problem playing against SoB and never noticed something wrong with Exorcists. Maybe you two are right and Exorcist are very harmful for your game style. If you play a tank game spamming turrets, waiting for nukes, titans or some powerful unit, this things may happen, some unit which destroys from the distance will bug you a lot or maybe some other race got all the SPs and their economy is huger than yours. I don't know, this are just possibilities.

My game is aggressive, I rush enemy bases in 10-15 minutes and this tactic is effective against all races except Tyranids and Necrons. Why? Well, the Necrons just play a tanking game, attacking a Necron base its almost like death at the beginning, turrets everywhere. It's not a complain, its their game style. For taking them down I have to wait till Whirlwinds, and just with Whirlwinds from the distance and having a little army to counter any Necron coming close, their evil is over. For Tyranids the solution is Grey Knights, Whirlwinds and a huge turret spam. So you may ask whats my deal with these two races?

Tyranids and Necrons are not overpowered. I have no problems with them, especially when I play as IG.

The deal is they have HUGE advantages in small maps:

Necrons can destroy your SPs and sometimes your base from theirs with their SPs, heavy gauss turret or Sentry Pylons.

Since the distances arent that far, early Immortals + Spyder Tomb can end your game in 12 minutes.

About Tyranids, well, again the distance but these are truly overpowered because at the beggining one of the free units, like Spinegaunt, can kill 2 Bodyguard squad upgraded at level 1. Also 3 or 4 free units plus a Hive Tyrant and a Hellfex are enough to end your game in less than 7 minutes if you dont have at least 4 turrets by then ( 120req and 30pow each for IDH ), so if thats not a cheap race, tell me what this is. Note Tyranids can deepstrike their units so they can keep the pressure up effortlessly. Lets say you can counter that, ok, but you will end with a wasted economy if you had to keep building turrets in order to prevent them from comming, ok, but by that time they probable have several times your resource rate because they can use free units to conquer SP and dont forget that this race uses almost only req for units and power for upgrades, so it will be hard for you to win comparing with their situation, but its not impossible. In less than 10 minutes they will have their artillery which is deadly once upgraded and combined with Warriors, you, as IDH, have nothing to do.

Tyranids can be vulnerable to fire, but they AI is smart enough to send units to your squads with flamethrower. You can use vehicles, Chimera with flamethrower or Razorback seems legit, but in small maps you dont have time to make enough Razorbacks and the Chimeras, again, paper armor. Hellfex and the artillery destroy Chimeras like nothing without mentioning the heroes.

If you play with IG maybe you dont see these problems because IG turrets are the most powerful of the mod so maybe with just turrets you can prevent this swarm, but its not at all the case of all the other factions. Or maybe the thing is you only play big maps and you never have to play a game with poor resources but in poor resources and small maps, Tyranids and Necrons have HUGE advantages.

To prove this I made not long ago the Chaos SM Challenge where the user Wallabe who claimed to play only in insane, admited this issue. Moreover, inspired by my challenge, the user madah123 made the SoB challenge, I guess to report the same thing for SoB. I guess he had no luck completing his challenge even playing with Overpowered and cheap Sisters of Battle. So weird you will think, why dont you try it then?

So here you are, try that challenge with the overpowered/cheap/bugged SoB, your beloved IG or Inquisition in the difficulty you usually play and then come here and report again how broken SoB are compared to Tyranids or Necrons

Looks like you don't have an adequate point.

I'm here because it's obviously broken and you haven't got anything worthy to prove another point.

Lame excuses, sorry.

Edited by: Battlemage1

I completly agree that Exorcist is unbalanced.

As soon as I build an archivist he's getting killed.

Even more messed up if you play on hardcore, most vehicles are getting insta killed.

Whats even more weird is that AI controlled SoB prefer targeting my forces, even when they are overrun by Tyranids.

Also, Exorcists keep destroying my Urban territorys.

Their range seems to be like whole map, since their Exorcist is on their base, and I am on the other side of the 8p map.

I really hope it gets fixed, thats annoying as hell.

Battlemage1 wrote:

Looks like you don't have an adequate point.

I'm here because it's obviously broken and you haven't got anything worthy to prove another point.

Lame excuses, sorry.

Yeah, you say "lame excuses" but you tell me to try by myself how broken they are playing against 3 insane SoB, because thats a worthy argument. Also a worthy argument and an adequate point is that "its not canon", and then point to some GW description. Suddenly the death of only units with low hp ( Chimera and Stormtroopers ) via Exorcists its also a perfectly acceptable argument.

Whats even more weird is that AI controlled SoB prefer targeting my forces, even when they are overrun by Tyranids.

Their range seems to be like whole map, since their Exorcist is on their base, and I am on the other side of the 8p map.

I'm beginning to think that maybe this is a problem of the AI and somehow the AI may can shoot farther but if you go and play a test game with SoB you will see how Exorcists have a medium range which I dont feel it should be nerfed.

Again, I agree its not fair how they destroy Archivist in a second and I agree that this should be fixed in order for them to receive less damage. But if your solution, Battlemage1, is to nerf their range, damage, armor ( 1600 hp and 2000 hp with armor upgrade, yep, only this hp ), and make them cost the same and the same cap ( 3 ), it will become an unuseful unit. Another solution you said is to make Archivist infantry but I should add it should have a lot of hp because the reason they survive an early attack is because they are vehicles, and yet another solution of yours is to make Servitors free of cap, which I'm not totally sure if this would make Inquisition OP because spamming a lot of Servitors will give you the chance to build the Shrine to the Emperor almost immediately the same as the Titans building and Nuke Center.

I totally agree that there are some AI issues, like using almost always their abilities over the player even if they never had contact, destroy the player first, sometimes in a free4all two or more factions attack the player at the same time and they only attack the player even having other enemies nearby, their builders sometimes get stuck, placing buildings in bad places preventing vehicles or big units to move, sometimes stop making infantry, sometimes having perfect accuracy, killing specific units, for example killing only the guys with flamethrower inside a squad... and now this problem with Exorcists. And I agree all this should be fixed but I see that it's a priority to balance other races which have huge advantages and huge disadvantages in GENERAL gameplay because while I never realized any big issue ( just the insta-kill of Archivists ) in SoB playing as Inquisition in small, medium, big maps, 2vs2, 1vs1, free4all, etc, I've seen how generally weak are both Eldars, specially Dark Eldar and after that comes the Orks. So thats a priority for me because it affect PvE and PvP gameplay.

Most adequate point is that three users told that it's broken/unfinished. Much more than the freshy Inquisition or Tyranids.

You're still casting mantra about same things, which are about nothing. You say 'totally', but only total fact is that SoB need revamp, and as soon as possible. Great changes for all army, in course of logic (Shord-ranged non-guided MLRS and long-ranged Whirlwind like missile launcher) and canon, not your thoughts about balance and fair/unfair ways to win the day.

Also, I'm totally not interested in your mind about all other factions of the game. Not because I'm sooo rude asshole, but because there is a problem to be solved. Or even some number of problems. Only reason, because this thread was created is (these very) known problems with this very faction.

I didn't tell anything about damage. Looks like you blinded, just as Woods said ). I told some things about short range changes for powerful artillery (standard exorcist) and long range anti-tank unit (Exo Mk II).

Playing sisters a lot, all I can say is that their artillery is quite weak against anything that isn't infantry. It's not exactly a unit you'd nerf more...

It's a unit(s) you'd need fix...

Based on what? Some multiplayer game where your archivists got killed? You do realize that requesting a change based on some personal multiplayer game where you felt a unit that your enemy was using was "overpowered" does not exactly make you come off as objective?

Sure, maybe Sisters need a revamp as a faction - but as I mentioned their artillery is already quite weak against anything not infantry. Also there was a bug with that missile ability that was supposed to damage buildings, it didn't do any damage at all & has been reported a few months ago. The unit doesn't need to be more gimped right now.

Do you realize that I have casualties in number of these archivists for the Inquisition?

Completely unacceptable! Sisters are mad now, all faction.

Edited by: Battlemage1

Whelp, I've read this thread. xD I think the more plausible fix would be just to nerf the Exorcist damage against light armored vehicles since archivists are light armored vehicles...

If you want to keep your Urban Territories alive, then shield them with the Listening Posts and upgrade them and upgrade them until their health reaches 7,500 hp max I believe?

If you play on small maps, range can be seen as global. UA is more balanced for bigger maps, but there are likes for playing on small maps too and that is where artillery has a great advantage. So overall based on range, I will not nerf any ranges of artillery, because like they are, artillery is artillery. 'Nuf said.

Thanks for feedback! I'll be sure to read comments to mine later hopefully.